According to new data from the WIT Index, which was just released by the Women In Trucking Association (WIT), an average 12.1% of overall professional drivers who hold commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) and drive heavy-duty trucks are female.

Women generally possess strong multi-tasking and organizations skills, and typically are safe drivers. For these reasons along with the need for more professional truck drivers, there has been a significant increase in the number of female drivers for the past five years.

“As with most anything in business, if you don’t measure it you cannot improve it,” said Jennifer Hedrick, president and CEO of WIT when reflecting on number of female professional drivers. “This is why the WIT Index is so important to the industry. Given the mission of the Women In Trucking Association in part is to encourage the employment of women in the trucking industry, we need to keep monitoring the progress made in bringing more women to all roles in transportation, and continuously look for ways to help our member companies and the industry at-large to recruit and retain talented women in critical roles.”

In addition, the 2023 WIT Index found an average of 43.5% of overall dispatchers are women. This is an important related statistic, as dispatchers are managers of professional truck drivers’ schedules and ensure timely pick-ups and deliveries.

The WIT Index is the industry’s barometer to regularly benchmark and measure the percentage of women who are in leadership roles and functional roles such as professional drivers of heavy-duty trucks, dispatchers, technicians, safety, and HR/talent management. Initiated in 2016, the index is based upon reported statistics by companies in transportation, including for-hire trucking companies, private fleets, transportation intermediaries, railroads, ocean carriers, equipment manufacturers, and technology companies. The data involving the 2023 WIT Index was confidentially gathered from January through April of 2023 from 350 participating companies of various sizes operating in the trucking industry. Percentages are reported only as aggregate totals of respondents.